This year I’ve competed in 4 main Senior competitions. At the Spanish Open meet I won my first senior competition in Barcelona. Then I had the build up to the world cup season where I competed in world cups #2 and #3. The second world cup was in Rio, as part of the Olympic test events, and I finished in 13th place. Then the next one was in Rome, and I finished 4th. In both these competitions I had the two best fences of my senior career, but I lost some valuable points in the riding events both times, which cost me places, and even a medal in Rome. After these two competitions I decided not to compete at the World Cup final as I did not need the Olympic ranking points (having already qualified from europeans in 2015) so I could concentrate on training for World Championships in Moscow. Despite a very good build up to the competition, I got food poisoning about a week before flying out, and as a result I couldn’t qualify for the final. Then my final competition of the year was the 2016 Olympics, where I was having the best competition of my life up until the final event, the combined run and shoot. I started this event in a comfortable 2nd place, but due to poor shoots I dropped down to 10th place. I am very disappointed with this because I know with shooting like I have done all year I would have medalled, but now that will have to wait until Tokyo 2020.

“GLL support is massive to someone like me who competes in a mulit-discipline sport . With the various sports I do, I often need new equipment, or to drive to different locations to do my training. For example, I probably need a new fencing blade every 2 months, and I drive 40 minutes to riding every week, and the support from GLL makes a massive difference in helping to alleviate some of the financial burden.”

My goals for the coming year include improving how I’m doing with my degree and targeting the world champs at the end of the year. I will have a few months where my mathematics degree is the main focus, but I expect to be training full time by the start of January for the World champs at the end of the competition season (September). In terms of goals for my career I want to go to Tokyo 2020 and medal there, and also I would like to be able to make the Olympics for another sport, but I need to see if that is going to be possible first!

Thank you Joe for sending in such a detailed case study. We wish him the best of luck for his studies and of course his training and upcoming competitions.